"I can't help laughing," said Dick; "you do look so queer!"
"Queer! I may well look queer. I tell you that I have never, never in my whole life, spent such a perfectly infernal week as this last!"
"Ah!" observed Dick, "I thought you wouldn't find it all jam! And yet you seemed to be enjoying yourself, too," he said with a grin, "from that letter you wrote."
"What made you come here? Couldn't you be content with your miserable victory, without coming down to crow and jeer at me?"
"It isn't that," said Dick. "I—I thought I should like to see the fellows, and find out how you were getting on, you know." These, however, were not his only and his principal motives. He had come down to get a sight of Dulcie.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Bultitude, with ponderous sarcasm, "you'll be delighted to hear that I'm getting on uncommonly well—oh, uncommonly! Your high-spirited young friends batter me to sleep with slippers on most nights, and, as a general thing, kick me about during the day like a confounded football! And last night, sir, I was going to be expelled; and this morning I'm forgiven, and sentenced to be soundly flogged before the whole school! It was just about to take place as you came in; and I've every reason to believe it is merely postponed!"
"I say, though," said Dick, "you must have been going it rather, you know. I've never been expelled. Has Chawner been sneaking again? What have you been up to?"
"Nothing. I solemnly swear—nothing! They're finding out things you've done, and thrashing me."
"Well," said Dick soothingly, "you'll work them all off during the term, I daresay. There aren't many really bad ones. I suppose he's seen my name cut on his writing-table?"